Fictional Characters in Need of a Book Contract

Fictional Characters in Need of a Book Contract

A well-written character can come to life outside the walls of his or her prescribed narrative. This was most recently the case with Mad Men’s Roger Sterling, whose fourth-season memoir Sterling Gold recently hit real shelves as Sterling Gold: Wit and Wisdom of an Ad Man, a time-traveling stocking-stuffer straight from the fictional mouth of the sharpest mind on mid-century Madison Avenue. Far from being the autobiography portrayed on the show, the slim volume is a collection of Sterling’s barbed witticisms (“When God closes a door, he opens a dress”), which are sure to sate Mad Men fans jonesing for sustenance between seasons.

The idea of a fake-memoir-turned-real-book got us thinking about tomes we wish our favorite literary characters — the ones who jump from the page and occupy a place in time and space — would write. Here’s a list of fantasy books we’d love to read by our favorite fictional personalities. Tell us in the comments section who else you’d like to read and what they’d likely write.

Title:One of the BoysAuthor: Lady Brett Ashley

Hemingway’s novels tip toward the masculine, so it’s no surprise that one of his most memorable female characters had the wardrobe of a jazz age Annie Hall. With short hair and tight sweaters, Brett has been both derided as a pleasure-seeking floozy and applauded for her progressive attitude towards sex. Whatever you think of her, she always attracts a crowd. Want to know how? Here, she invites readers into her wardrobe and her bedroom to find out.

Sample chapters: “How to Make Love To a Bull-Fighter”; “The No-Hangover Secret: Stay Up Drinking All Night and Still Look Beautiful in the Morning”; “Androgynous Hair Styles”